Doctor Who_ Just War - Lance Parkin [69]
Unfortunately, real life wasn’t broken up into neat compartments. They knew that Hartung’s group, officially a part of the Luftwaffe zbV, actually included members of the SS and regular army as well as the Luftwaffe itself. Reed obviously knew more than he was saying, here, and it might be important.
‘Can you give me one example?’ she asked reasonably.
George looked furtive. ‘Don’t you dare tell anyone about this: last year, one of the first jobs the SID had was to try and assess the German radar network. We knew that the Germans called a new system “Wotan”, but we had no idea what it was, or even if it had anything to do with radar. Well, would could work out from the name that it was something important, so — ’
‘Hang on a second, you’ve lost me.’
George grinned, a pleasing sight. ‘Wotan, or Odin, was the king of the Norse Gods. The top Nazi brass are obsessed with the Norse myths, believe it or not. Anyway, the very first piece of equipment the SID bought was a reference book about the Norse myths. And lo and behold, we found out that one of Wotan the God’s characteristics was that he only had one eye. We managed to match up that with a single-beam radar guidance system we knew they were developing. One eye, one radar beam. So we found out what Wotan the Weapon was, just from the codename.’
Roz and Reed looked at each other for a second. The same idea had just occurred to them both. Reed hurried over to the bookcase, and pulled the book down. It was a handsome, leather-bound edition, and hadn’t been touched for a year, since the Wotan incident he had just related. Reed thumbed his way through the index.
‘I don’t believe it...’ he breathed, flicking his way through the book. He opened up the book, and handed it across to Roz.
There was a full-page engraving of Odin, seated on a magnificent throne. Odin was a man in his fifties, bearded, wearing an elaborate eagle helmet. He had an eyepatch over one eye, a spear in his hand, a magnificent ring on his finger. At his feet were two wolves, at his shoulders two black birds.
Roz read out some of the text. “Odin also commanded Hugin and Munin, two ravens perched upon his shoulders.
Their names mean ‘Thought’ and ‘Memory’. Every morning Odin sent them out, and they returned at nightfall, when they whispered the news of the whole earth to him. No one could catch these birds, and they could come and go as they pleased, as swift and as silent as their name might indicate.
Through them, the All-father knew of all earthly happenings.”
’
Roz sat back. ‘OK. So we have a clue. Next question: what does it mean?’
‘Well, Hugin and Munin are birds. Aerial weapon. It’s the superbomber.’
‘They don’t say “superbomber” to me, George. “Thought”
and “Memory”? Why have two names?’
‘Two types of bomber: heavy and light, long or short range,’ George offered.
‘What if this is a double bluff?’ Roz said, suddenly suspicious.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Isn’t it just a bit hokey that this German codename gives us this clue?’
‘No, Roz. The beauty of working in counter-intelligence against the Germans is that they never learn from their mistakes. During our standard training we are told about a system the Germans had for passing messages at the last war. In 1916, there was a woman — I forget her name — but every day she’d cross a checkpoint. She said she was visiting her brother, and every single day she was searched, and no one ever found anything. The guards befriended her, and the search became a formality. One day, the officer in charge was talking to her and, conversationally, he asked what she had in her basket. “Just a few boiled eggs and some bread and butter,” she said. He reached in, and plucked out one of the eggs.’
‘I take it that this story